Surviving Santiago (27 page)

“Is this enough for Berta, too?” I ask.

“She's out for the day.”

“Is she mad at me?”

Tía Ileana frowns for a moment. “She'll get over it.”

While I heat the oil in a heavy iron skillet, Tía Ileana sets a pot of water to boil and opens the tomato sauce. She hums under her breath, like she's really happy to be here. With me. I drop the pieces of chicken into the skillet, one by one, trying to keep the oil from splattering all over. It pops and I jump back a step. “I actually like cooking,” I say. “It's fun.”

“That's what Berta says.” My aunt smiles at me.

“When we get home, we should make something nice for supper. Not just leftovers.”

Tía Ileana's smile vanishes. “Your father won't eat it.”

“What's it to him? He hardly eats anything.” I roll a chicken leg away from the skillet's edge with a fork. “We should do what we like.”

My aunt puts her arm around my waist and pulls me to her. I snuggle against her, feel her head touch the top of my head, and sniff the lemon scent of Berta's shampoo. I chew my lower lip, thinking about how miserable it's been living with my father for the past few weeks, how she's had to do it for months and will probably be stuck with him until . . .

Until he ends up like Frankie's father?

Maybe Tía Ileana can read my mind, because she says, “I talked to him yesterday about what happened at the demonstration.”

“Was he . . .?”

“Yes,
amorcita
.” Her arm drops from my shoulder to her side. “He said someone gave him a bottle to calm his nerves. He didn't know who.”

I suck in air. “They could have poisoned him.”

“It wasn't opened. But he shouldn't have opened it and given the cops the excuse to arrest him.”

“So he knows it wasn't totally my fault, right?” But what unknown person got him drunk? Someone he worked with, or someone who wanted to destroy him?

Little bubbles rise from the pot of water, not quite a full boil. Tía Ileana slides spaghetti from the box into the pot anyway. The water hisses. I realize she hasn't answered my question.

Because she can't make him change his mind.

After a minute or so of staring at the water, I ask, “What about Papá's birds if I'm here? Will they be okay?”
And if so, will he change his mind about me?

“I took care of them this morning. And I brought you fresh clothes.”

“Thank you.” I kiss her cheek.

“It's no trouble. When your father brought the first bird home, I thought I'd have to take care of it. I'm surprised how responsible he's been.” She lays her hand over mine. “As a child he'd pick up stray creatures all the time and right away lose interest in them.”

“Kind of like what he did with his family.”

My aunt sighs. My mother would have gone on for at least half an hour about how he abandoned us.

Tía Ileana lets go of me so I can finish cooking. But I want to know more. “What was my father like as a kid?” I ask.

“Spoiled. As the youngest and the only son usually is.” While I turn the chicken over to brown the other side, Tía Ileana continues. “Your grandfather Aguilar lost so much in the Spanish Civil War—his home, his cause, two of his brothers killed. He had to start over
in a new country. I think he lived the rest of his life through Marcelo. Your father loved soccer and every match he played it was like your grandfather was fighting the war again.”

“But he was so good. Daniel and I used to watch him.” It seems kind of crazy for someone to think a soccer game was the same thing as the Spanish Civil War, but when we played soccer in Madison, plenty of parents went crazy and yelled at their kids or the other kids or the referees if their team lost. They must have had their reasons, too.

“Growing up, his whole life was sports, but I also think he understood what it meant for our father.”

“Mamá said he gave
fútbol
up to write.”

“He did.” Tía Ileana reaches past me to stir the spaghetti. “When he was a teenager, he filled up a notebook with
fútbol
poems. Our father found it and made him burn it. He called it a waste of time, and Marcelo got the message. After that, even when he wrote about sports, he'd always bring politics into it.”

“Which is how he got himself messed up.” With a fork I stab a drumstick and bat the other browned pieces around the pan. I step closer to take in the aroma before tomato sauce buries it.

Tía Ileana dumps the sauce in. “At least your grandfather wasn't alive to see it.”

“Was my grandfather any different?”

Her face scrunches up. “In what way?”

“I mean, is this something passed down from father to son?” I think of Daniel, who's not exactly a barrel of laughs, either. “You know, how Papá sucks all the happiness out of everyone else and instead of going to him, it goes into this hole. Like some sort of Minus World where stuff goes in and it can't ever get out.” I make a loud sucking sound, then pop my lips.

Tía Ileana laughs at my sound effects. “You remind me of Cecilia,” she says.

“Because I'm the wild one?” I pick up the impaled drumstick and twirl it in the air.

“And don't ever change.” My aunt hugs me again. “Only be more careful.”

T
hey start to trust me. On Saturday afternoon, Tía Ileana leaves for the hospital, and Berta goes shopping. Left alone, I dial the number to the apartment where Frankie's holed up, which I wrote down the first day I went there. I want to make sure that he's still all right. And that no one's coming after me.

He isn't surprised when he hears me.

“Is it safe to talk?” I ask.

“Yeah, they just left.” His voice sounds strange. Thick, but not like he's been drinking. More like he has food in his mouth that he can't swallow.

“Who left?” When he doesn't answer, I ask, “The people you work with?”

“Uh-huh.” Another pause. “Did you find a place to go?”

“Yeah.” I chew a hangnail on my index finger.

“Your grandmother's in Las Condes?”

I swallow and almost choke. “Can't say.”

“But you're all right?” His voice breaks.

“Yeah. And you?”

“I didn't tell them about the keys,” he says. The walls of the kitchen close in on me. I've had so much fun cooking and hanging out with Tía Ileana that I didn't think about the keys once.

“I'll get them tomorrow.” I hold my voice steady so he thinks I mean it.

“They know.”

“Know what? To change the locks?”

“That you and your father are still alive.”

“Crap.” I bite the nail itself.

“They don't care about you anymore.”

My finger stings. I taste blood. “What about Papá?”

There's a moment before he says, “They haven't decided,” and right away, I know he's lying. The room spins.
I can't give up on you and your father
, Tía Ileana told me.

“They've ordered you to kill Papá, haven't they?”

“Tina . . . there's something else.”

“What?” I suck on my finger.

Frankie clears his throat. “My father's not on your side like I told your aunt. He was in the army. He supported the general. And he started drinking in the army. After the coup they made him interrogate people.”

“You mean
torture
people? Papá wasn't interrogated—he was tortured. It ruined his life.” All those memories I had of my old
papá
before I came here—I can't conjure a single one of them now.

“At one point, he couldn't do it anymore. So they demoted him. Humiliated him. And when he got drunk and crashed a jeep, they kicked him out.”

“So what does that have to do with Papá? He doesn't even like the army.” Once again, Frankie lied. His family made him follow their politics the same way my grandfather from Spain got Papá involved, but on the opposite side.

Frankie sighs. “I can't end up like my old man.”

No, he can't. This has to stop.

“So what are you going to do?” I say out loud.

“Leave the country.”

“And you need the keys. So they don't think you're an incompetent who let them fall into enemy hands.”

“Yes.”

“And you need to do what they tell you.” My voice trembles. “Kill my father for real this time.”

“Tina, I love you. I don't want to do anything to hurt you.” I can tell he's breaking down. “Please help me.”

Like you didn't help me when I had no place to go? Like you want to kill Papá to save your own ass?
But I can't hang up on him, and I can't let him hurt Papá. My teeth grind my fingernail once more. If Frankie won't stand up to his gang, I'll have to rescue my father myself.

“How do I get the keys to you? And when?” I ask.

“Take the
micro
.” He lists the bus lines that go to his apartment. I write them down on the notepad next to the phone. “Tomorrow morning, before nine.”

“Why so early?”

“My grandmother gets back at ten thirty.”

I roll my bloody finger on the notepad, like a fingerprint. “There's no grandmother.”

There's silence on the line. I hear a key in the lock.

“I gotta go.” I rip the page off and stuff it into my jeans pocket.

“I love you, Tina.”

I hang up. In my mind, I repeat,
ten thirty—something's going to happen
.

Seconds later, Berta comes in with an armful of grocery bags. I jump to help her, but as I reach for the first bag, the words rush out, “Take me to the hospital!”

She looks at me, mouth gaping.

“Please! It's an emergency!”

C
HAPTER
27

T
hey won't let me go up to Papá's room. Instead, Tía Ileana meets me in the hospital lobby. “What happened?” she asks in a weary tone as if to say,
Can't I go away for more than a few hours without some crisis?

“I found out something.” I stand on tiptoe and whisper in her ear. “The people who hurt Papá. They know where he is and they're coming back for him. Frankie told me.”

My aunt covers her mouth with her hand. Then she turns to Berta. “Take Tina back to the apartment. I'll call you later.”

At the apartment, I try to help Berta with supper but cut my finger slicing tomatoes and burn my hand taking a sheet of empanadas from the oven. I'm in the bathroom putting ointment on my palm when I hear the door open and Berta exclaim, “Oh, no, not
him
!”

I rush into the living room in time to hear slurred words: “You think I want to be here?”

Tía Ileana and Ernesto hold Papá upright, his arms draped over their shoulders. Tía Ileana carries his cane
and leg brace. He has the beginning of a beard, and his face is pale with an orangeish hue, like the picture on a messed-up color TV. He wears an oversize shirt, plaid pajama pants, unlaced sneakers, and a pressure bandage on his right wrist in addition to the splint on his left. Slowly, they lower him to the sofa, stuff some pillows behind his back, and help him stretch out his legs. Behind his glasses, his eyes are nearly shut.